Angels and Demons
by Mistress of the Arts
Summary: Oneshot. Joshua never really knew how to face the light or his mistakes, not until he met Neku Sakuraba - the boy who turned his very playground into an endgame. Joshua never really knew how to relate to others, except for one other... Past-centric.


_A/N: "The World Ends with You" and characters belong to Square Enix. This is my take on the character Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryuu and my OC. Please review and let me know your thoughts._

_**Angels and Demons**_

It should not have ever been like this.

Yet, life was cruel and a battlefield. It had always been that way. In a way, everyone was cursed.

It started when they were children, siblings who could only turn to each other for protection, trying desperately to hide from the world's malevolent eyes. They only found solace within each other's embrace, only found a way to fight back through encouragement through each other.

They were born in Japan, born as Arisa and Yoshiya Kiryuu. It was when she turned eight and he turned three were they taken overseas, given new individualities and personas to hide with, to escape the judgment and fear of others. They were given Christian names, looked after by an estranged relative during their childhood and early teens. They were forced to learn control over the instability of their minds.

The only way to gain the love of their parents once again was to find a way to suppress who they truly were. They returned to their homeland, void of the light that once filled their identical eyes, swirling like amethysts in shade, a trait passed down through the Kiryuu line that marked them as what they were.

The correct term was psychics. The term they came to know was gifted.

She had just turned eighteen when the accident claimed the lives of the familiar strangers who brought them into the world. None of their relatives stepped up to claim them. They feared the Kiryuu siblings. He took on his Christian name, as a way to separate himself from his past self. She took on her given name, as a way to reform the individuality she had lost.

Joshua was fifteen when it all started. His mind was maturing, along with his powers. He could see the souls of the Underground. He knew the game that life and death played, falling hand-in-hand, twisted and corrupt in its own way. Though, through the eyes of a misguided child, it was vibrant and bright.

The only color he found in this black and grey world.

Arisa would come home to an empty apartment, struggling to make ends meet and to provide for the only family she had left. Long days of labor, working until her fingers would bleed, dealing with the discrimination and the attacks of society for being strange, being indifferent. Every word spoken to her was a snide remark. The same went for her precious baby brother.

He would come home, hiding behind arrogance and smirks, his silver tongue his best weapon. But as the sunlight drifted as another day would pass, the mask would slip off, showing the vulnerable child underneath who sought a loving embrace.

Violet eyes would look at him with understanding, her arms being held open for him as his footsteps would cross their small apartment, before he would lower himself onto the worn mattress and rest his head on her small shoulder. She would run her fingers through his dirty blond locks, falling in unkempt waves and hiding the misted eyes.

His hands would clutch at the back of her shirt, fingers entangling in brown waves that tumbled down her back and framed her face - the only kind face he knew in this world.

Her whispered words of love were the only piece of reality he held on to. If Arisa vanished, his world would crumble. He would be alone, lost in a desolate void that would leave him broken.

Salvation slipped through their fingers that fateful day, a week before the final game would be played in the battleground that was known as Shibuya. Regret pulsated through the young Composer those three weeks, fighting to keep himself from breaking all the rules. Life and death fell hand-in-hand, with the threads of the tapestry of Fate thin and about to snap.

His beloved sister's thread was entwined to the life of another's.

She died because of him, trying to save him from being eliminated in the dangerous Game he had created. Her entry fee was her memories and love for her brother. He handpicked her partner, a lone wolf youth from the states. He was a gift from God and would be the savior of his dear Arisa.

Joshua watched as she fought and laughed, content in her oblivion.

In the end, not even the Composer could pull a fast one over Death's eyes, and not even the Composer's sister could escape His clutches so easily. Arisa was put to a trial. Only one could go free, and with the life of her partner's brother hanging in the balance, Arisa had forced Matthew to return to the Realground and leave the Underground. She was entered in the Game again.

Sadly, another's entry fee took away her chance of survival.

It all came to down to Neku Sakuraba.

He owed more to Neku than he would ever truly let on.

So with solemn eyes filled with gratitude and regret, perched high on the eighteenth story and looking over the battleground that had given him life through death, Joshua watched as the first friends in his life met up for the first time. They would never know he was there, watching over them as the fallen angel he had came to be.

Arisa won her second chance.

It had been two years since that day when the Game became an Endgame. He moved through the bustling town, crowded in streets, with eyes taking in the world and seeing those struggling with death. He had learned his lesson and locked away his gift. He now had something to live for.

Protecting his friends from the shadows, guarding the city he came to love.

He would come home to a quaint house with a swing in the yard, hearing the laughter of his niece and nephew as they rushed into his arms, gazing up and at the beautiful face of the only person who had ever loved him, standing beside her husband's side and smiling.

He had once been a wretch, struggling to breathe and keep himself sane, playing with mankind as if they were toys. He had once been a Composer, ruling over the battleground where he had eventually found himself.

Now, he was simply a young man, trying to accept and love the cold world that he wanted to burn. His heart would never allow him to do that. Not if it meant bringing tears to her eyes.

After all, she was just as twisted as him, an angel living in darkness.

As he was a demon living in light.

~Fin~


End file.
